For more than eight hours Wednesday, two Acworth toddlers were left unattended in a locked apartment bedroom.
Inside, a soiled diaper littered the floor and human waste was spread on a closet door. Water over-flowed from a bathroom sink and the carpet was soaked.
Those were some of the new details that emerged Thursday afternoon hours after Cherokee authorities announced the arrest of the toddlers’ mother on two counts of cruelty to children.
A maintenance worker told deputies a water leak had been reported in the ceiling of one of the units at the Waldan Pond Apartments on Bells Ferry Road, according to an incident report. When the worker went upstairs to check on the source of the leak Wednesday evening, he found two untended boys, a 2- and 3-year-old, Lt. Jay Baker with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said.
The boys were not wearing clothes and feces was smeared across the carpet, according to the report.
Investigators determined their mother, 22-year-old Angel Henderson, had been gone since about 11 a.m. Henderson did not deny leaving the children and told deputies that she was delayed getting home because her car had been disabled for non-payment of car insurance, according to the report.
She told authorities she wasn’t gone long and had to take a taxi home. But a preliminary investigation found Henderson works until 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. It was not clear how often Henderson left the children alone, but the incident report said the lock on the bedroom door was installed backward, so that the door could be locked from the outside.
Monique Corey, a friend of Henderson’s, said the young mother is a good person in a bad situation.
“She is not a bad mother,” Corey said. “She made a bad decision and it is one that will affect her for a long time. I hate the way things happened, but it is what it is.”
The boys were taken in by officials from the Division of Family and Children Services.
Henderson is being held at the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center in lieu of $44,400 bond.
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